I Love Rock n Roll

On Saturday night we went to see Joan Jett and The Blackhearts at one of the local casinos. She has been on my bucket list for years. I’ve missed several opportunities to see her, for one reason or another. But this year, The Husband Dude bought tickets as a birthday gift for me.

There’s something about Joan Jett that I’ve always loved. Bad Reputation is one of my favorite songs and maybe it was because as a teen, I fantasized about being a badass and not caring what other people thought about me. At that age, I was too much of a people-pleaser. I didn’t quit giving a damn, as Joan sings, until I was well into adulthood.

After a self-imposed moratorium on going to events because of increasingly ridiculous ticket prices, we were excited for a rare opportunity to stretch our musical legs again. The show was set to start at 8:00 p.m. so we decided to get there a little early to find parking and maybe play a few slots before the show.

We could’ve used valet parking because it’s free, but The Dude is really paranoid about anyone being in our car. It doesn’t help that the last time he used valet parking, they changed his radio station and tried to turn on his non-existent air conditioning on full blast. The AC has been busted for some time, so some poor valet just got blasted with hot air. The Dude got blasted with Top 40.

Normally, these things don’t bother me because we are both people who drive cars until the wheels literally fall off, but I do always feel self-conscious when I valet park because I wonder if I’m being compared to the rich guy that just pulled up in a BMW convertible with some arm candy in the seat beside him.

I mean, it really doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, what kind of bag you’re carrying, or how much you tip the valet, it’s impossible to feel sexy when you roll up to the Hard Rock Hotel in a 2009 Chevy Equinox littered with reusable shopping bags and Legos.

All this to say, we arrived around 6:30, self-parked ten miles out, and got our daily cardio hoofing it to the casino.

You know, when they first legalized gaming in Oklahoma, I got excited. My only experience with casinos were the ones in Las Vegas. When I was single, my mom and I would go to Vegas every spring break. Vegas (at least on the strip) is geared toward tourists. It’s glitzy. It’s bright. It’s fun. Everybody looks happy because they are there to visit and the hospitality people in the hotels, restaurants, and casinos are there to cater to the tourists’ every whim. The tourists are all happy because they are there for a few days to get away from reality and party, gamble and drink before going back to their regular lives.

It’s a magical, fun place. Disneyland for adults.

And it’s totally made up.

Local casinos are not like this at all.

Sure, you have the clanging of the slot machines. You have cute girls serving watered-down drinks. The hospitality people are still there to make sure you’re taken care of, but the glitz of Las Vegas is replaced by the stale smell of cigarette smoke with earthy tones of desperation.

Watching people spend their electric bill money on a dollar slot machine kind of takes the fun out of the whole casino experience.

The Dude and I were in the middle of this weird combination of ringing bells, lights, and faces mesmerized by buttons saying “Bet Max” when The Dude made the most astute observation that I’ve ever heard from him.

He leaned over and said, “There’s everything here from five-dollar Walmart shirts to two-hundred-dollar coochie dresses.”

I looked around, nodding slowly, realizing how right he was.

Then he leaned over and added, “And that’s just the guys.”

Being the cheap asses that we are, we left the twenty dollar bills we brought with us in our wallets and pulled out one-dollar bills instead for the penny slots. A little while later, we walked away with our cash-in vouchers for twenty-eight cents. After our high-stakes gambling, we meandered over to the theater to find our seats for the show.

“There sure are a lot of old people here to see Joan Jett,” I said to The Dude.

He gave me side-eye. “They’re all our age,” he chuckled, with more than a little irony.

“NO WAY!” I said, looking around. But then I realized it was true. There is a ten-year difference between him and me, and it’s safe to say this group of people probably did fall somewhere in this age range. I was starting to get depressed.

Luckily, we ran into friends and got a little distracted from feeling our ages. That is, until we went to find our seats and the actual show started.

There were at least five ushers who looked at our tickets and “helped” us find our seats. One of them even took my hand and “helped” me down the stairs to the floor. Apparently, the days of fending for ourselves because we are young and able-bodied are over. We now need help. Just as I was about to pull out my phone and start researching an AARP membership, the lights went down and the show started.

Let me start by saying that Joan Jett is awesome. She can still shred a guitar like nobody’s business. She looked damned good too. And she still had that sexy smile. I’m not going to lie. When she sang, “Do you wanna touch me?” I kind of did.

But the crowd was a little lower energy than I’m accustomed to at a rock show and I was really starting to feel my age. Half the theater was sitting down. Even though it was reserved seating, they let people come up to the front of the stage. Back in the day, this would’ve resulted in pandemonium.

I can remember going to a David Lee Roth concert in 1986 that was General Admission. My friend and her sister and I got there early and staked out spots at the front. When the music started, we were nearly trampled by 10,000 unruly fans and got shoved up against the barricades until we couldn’t breathe. We had to hold hands and fight out of the crowd, drenched in sweat, just to get some air.

Saturday’s crowd moved forward in a very orderly fashion and politely held their cell phones out of each other’s way to take photos and videos. A few Hipsters showed up just long enough to take selfies with the band in the background. The lady next to me sat down and tapped her foot in time to the beat.

Joan Jett music used to make me want to wear black and kick shit over. Ten minutes in this crowd and the only thing I was going to be kicking was kids off my lawn.

I guess this is to be expected in a venue located in Margaritaville. It was definitely five o’clock in that theater. I don’t want to say things were mellow but I’m not sure anybody would’ve noticed if Joan had started singing about blowing out her flip flop and stepping on a pop top.

And don’t even get me started on the old fucker that was so drunk he was doing the whole “Live Long and Prosper” gesture instead of devil horns. The Dude started doing it too, just to be funny, and I’m pretty sure just to annoy me.

The show ended promptly at 9:20.

Let me say that again. The show ended promptly at 9:20.

The house lights came up and people started leaving.

“Where’s everybody going?” The Dude asked, looking around, completely confused.

“It’s over,” I said.

“Over????” He pulled out his phone. “It’s 9:20!”

“Yep.”

We started walking out. Again, it was all very orderly. We were back on the casino floor with the ringing bells.

“Damn,” said The Dude. “Maybe we can make it home in time to watch Lawrence Welk or the 10:00 news.”

I laughed. “Come on, high roller. Let’s go find the nickel slots.”

I’d like to say we partied until three a.m. and then went and ate breakfast at some all-night diner, preparing ourselves for the inevitable hangover.

I’d like to, but instead, we each put ten dollars in nickel slots and when The Dude won fifteen, we cashed out and went to Taco Bueno. Tacos for me and a burrito for him.

And yes, I cashed out my twenty-eight cent tickets. Money doesn’t grow on trees, Sonny!

Adding insult to injury, we came home and turned on the TV to find our favorite 1980s MTV veejays on an infomercial selling Time Life music collections.

I really haven’t felt this depressed since The Fonz started selling reverse mortgages.